Sales rose less than forecast last month as Hurricane Harvey roiled Texas. But they'd already slowed during 2017 after setting records in the previous seven years.

Analysts, however, saw improvement in the final quarter of the year. For one, several cars that were salvaged by the hurricanes will be replaced, and that should boost sales numbers after the initial slowdown.

"We don't buy the idea that the vehicles sales would have kept falling absent the likely post-hurricane rebound," Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a preview. "In our view, the decline in sales this year is mostly a consequence of the unsustainable surge late last year, when a huge wave of incentive spending, led by Ford, drove sales up to a peak of 18.2M in December."